Kirkus | May 25, 2022

The arrival of a new girl creates drama at a riding stable.

Drama is the last thing Victoria needs: She arrives at Edgewood Stables from rival Waverly Stables following a blowup with former best friend Taylor that leaves her shaken. Taylor has her own horse and takes riding and showing very seriously. Victoria is a good rider, but she understands that her accountant mom will never be able to buy her a horse, and she wants to have time for other things, like watching her favorite science-fiction show, Beyond the Galaxy. Despite a rocky start at Edgewood, she develops friendships with the other middle schoolers in the barn: uber-extrovert Norrie, quiet Hazel, and Sam, who is the only boy. Her new friends are not only Beyond the Galaxy fans, they also help her regain her own confidence in herself and around horses. The story is told from both Victoria’s and Norrie’s points of view, with flashbacks to Victoria’s friendship with Taylor. The emotional arc is realistic and finely developed, with the underlying message, emphasized by illustrations depicting riders with a broad range of skin tones and body types, that there are many ways to be a rider. Norrie is cued as South Asian; Sam reads as Black, and the other main characters appear White. The horses are well done, too. The clean, jewel-toned artwork is especially strong at portraying emotions through facial expressions and body language.

Combines sensitive character exploration with horses: a blue-ribbon winner.

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Great Day Connecticut/WFSB | May 24, 2022

Authors Krista Wells and Nicole Moleti talk about their new book "An Imperfect Plan” in this video.

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CrimeReads | May 24, 2022

It may be the fact that this CrimeReads editor moved back to Texas, but did anyone else feel like summer started months ago?!? Or maybe I just felt that way because I started reading for the summer preview back in February, to make sure I dedicated plenty of time to picking out the cleverest, twistiest, most puzzling and pulse-pounding mysteries I could find for your poolside consumption over the next few months. Let’s see which is higher—this year’s record temperatures, or the number of books on your to-read list after scrolling through the following. (Also because this preview was assembled by a former bookseller, the old joke about booksellers recommending emotionally devastating titles as beach reads does apply but only for, like, a third of the titles on this list.)

May Cobb, My Summer Darlings
(Berkley)

A stranger comes to town, in Cobb’s exhilarating new thriller. In this case the town is in East Texas, home to three women who keep each other sane with daily drinks and conversation, the latter of which begins to focus on a man newly arrived in the neighborhood. And of course, it turns out he has secrets. My Summer Darlings is a smart, fun thriller about obsession and friendship.

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Comic-Con | May 18, 2022

Comic-Con is proud to announce the nominees for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2022. The nominations are for works published between January 1 and December 31, 2021 and were chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges.

Once again, this year’s nominees in 32 categories reflect the wide range of material being published in the U.S. today in comics and graphic novel media, representing over 150 print and online titles from some 65 publishers, produced by creators from all over the world.

Among projects with 2 nominations are Not All Robots (AWA Upshot), Superman: Red & Blue (DC), Popeye: The EC Seger Sundays (Fantagraphics), Bubble (First Second/Macmillan), You Died: An Anthology of the Afterlife (Iron Circus), Alison Bechdel’s The Secret of Superhuman Strength (Mariner Books), Will McPhail’s In (Mariner Books), Marvel Comics Library: Spider-Man 1962–1964 (TASCHEN), Lovesickness: Junji Ito Story Collection (VIZ Media), and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (VIZ Media).

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Goodreads | May 17, 2022

Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day.

To create our list, we focused on the books Goodreads members can't wait to read, which we measure by how many times a book has been added to Want to Read shelves. All these top titles are now available in the United States! Which ones catch your eye?

My Summer Darlings
by May Cobb
You should read this book if you like: Thrillers, lifelong wine-drinking friends, sexy strangers who move to town, manipulation, obsession, murder, The Hunting Wives

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Writer's Digest | May 17, 2022

Author May Cobb discusses offering readers a summer of mayhem with her new novel, My Summer Darlings.

May Cobb earned her MA in literature from San Francisco State University, and her essays and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, The Rumpus, Edible Austin, and Austin Monthly. Her previous novel is The Hunting Wives. A Texas native, she lives in Austin with her family.

In this post, May discusses offering readers a summer of mayhem with her new novel, My Summer Darlings, her advice for other writers, and more!

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Book & Film Globe | May 17, 2022

Women take center stage in these juicy beach reads about the strayed bonds of friendship.

Friendship triangles can be far deeper than love triangles, Texas novelists Amanda Eyre Ward and May Cobb show us in their newest novels.

The lengths women will go to also command center stage in Cobb’s My Summer Darlings, an undeniably steamy romp of a thriller.

Cobb’s three women live in small-town East Texas. There’s newly divorced Jen, arty Cynthia and flirty Kittie. They too share a bond fortified by boozy nights, and they’ve got plenty to dish about once hot, vaguely European stranger Will moves there.

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Paste Magazine | May 17, 2022

Many readers likely discovered author May Cobb thanks to her novel The Hunting Wives, a 2021 Book of the Month club selection that followed the story of a women’s-only shooting club in East Texas. (Spoiler alert: It’s very fun, and this is absolutely how yours truly discovered Cobb’s work.) Her follow-up novel, titled My Summer Darlings and featuring a similar bubblegum bright and sultry cover, is the same sort of summertime popcorn thriller: Propulsive, full of unexpected twists, with more than a little spicy sexiness thrown on top to make it fun. The sort of story you accidentally find yourself devouring in an afternoon, simply because it’s so easy to promise yourself you’re only going to read one more chapter. (And then immediately break that promise in order to read one more.)

My Summer Darlings is essentially a book that’s been created in a lab to be read poolside with a Black Cherry White Claw close at hand—and I mean that in the best of all possible ways—while you gasp your way through several hundred pages of the bad choices and messed up relationship decisions that only ever seem to get made by well-off suburbanite women with little to lose. It is a book that is the definition of a guilty pleasure, and there is absolutely no shame in that. It is summer, there is a reason thrillers of all stripes are so popular this time of the year, and Cobb taps into the indulgent, escapist vibe of it all perfectly.

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Goodreads | May 16, 2022

Summer reading time has arrived, and for the serious reader that means it’s time to enact a game plan. There are just too many good books, that’s the pleasant problem. If you want to get a lot of reading done, sequencing is critical.

Mystery and thriller fans, this one is for you. Below are the most anticipated mysteries and thrillers of the summer. Lots of delicious creepiness on tap: Jazz Age murder, circa 1924. A killer on the loose at 26,781 feet above sea level. Death by yoga, maybe. Also watch for new books from genre professionals, including Ruth Ware, Riley Sager, and Rachel Howzell Hall.

My Summer Darlings by May Cobb is featured.

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CrimeReads | May 12, 2022

If you are not reading something good right now you are not paying attention. These are outstanding times for readers—put the boring book down and pick up any of these.

May Cobb, My Summer Darlings (Berkley)

It’s not the most original thought but if you liked May Cobb’s first book, The Hunting Wives, you will definitely like My Summer Darlings. Three lifelong friends (why is it always three?) are staring at 40 and assessing their lives so far. Yes, in a few years, they will be ready for The Change, but right now they are bored and frustrated and living in a small town in East Texas. It gets spicy when a handsome stranger buys the biggest house in the neighborhood. Will Harding is charming, mysterious and hot, and our heroines are hooked. But of course, Will is not what he seems, and now their lives of afternoon wine drinking and gossip are threatened by this compelling stranger.

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Bank Street College of Education | May 12, 2022

CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP (YA Edition) - selected for the 2022 edition of the Best Children's Books of the Year published by the Children’s Book Committee of Bank Street College of Education

Each year members of the Children’s Book Committee review thousands of titles for accuracy, literary quality, diversity, emotional impact, and social relevance and organize them according to age, topic, and genre. The Committee is composed of volunteers with an established expertise in the field of children’s literature, including librarians, authors, teachers, psychologists, and booksellers. 

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The Dallas Morning News | May 11, 2022

After the success of her last novel, The Hunting Wives, May Cobb returns with another novel set in her native East Texas.

My Summer Darlings, which comes out May 17, features three lifelong friends, Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears and Cynthia Nichols. In the middle of a scorching summer, their lives are upended when a mysterious, handsome man moves to their neighborhood.

We talked to Cobb about her hard-drinking heroines, their midlife crises and her unique perspective on Texas.

How did you develop the idea for My Summer Darlings, a twist on the “handsome stranger comes to town” concept?

My friend, the thriller author Riley Sager, usually has a film in mind for inspiration when he sets out to write a new book, and I thought for this one, I’d try that same approach. And the movie that sprang to mind was The Witches of Eastwick, which, as you know, is very much centered on the concept of the “handsome stranger moving to town.”

So I wanted to explore that set-up, minus the paranormal stuff in the film, and deeply dig into the minds of my main characters, Kittie, Jen and Cynthia, to see how far their obsession with Will, the handsome stranger, could take them.

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Paste Magazine | May 11, 2022

Summer is the most deliciously slow season, from beach (or pool) days stretching long to balmy outdoor drinks past sunset. That’s why it pairs so well with thrillers and mysteries—they go at such a fast clip, and you often have more time to read, that it’s like a summer reading wormhole.

That’s why we’ve spaced out these propulsive, engrossing summer reads; some are out now, while others will be waiting for you as the season unfolds. And the thrills vary, from serial killers to child stars and fake handbag rings to art heists (all the capers!) and secret affairs to mistaken-identity rideshares. Some (Portrait of a Thief and Counterfeit) already have TV deals in the works, but these books are so cinematic on their own that you don’t want to miss out.

My Summer Darlings by May Cobb

May Cobb follows up her dark debut The Hunting Wives with another scintillating tale of neighborhood intrigue in a northeast Texas town, this time by way of a trio of female friends and a shared obsession. Jen is back in her adolescent neighborhood following a nasty divorce; Cynthia is flailing in her seemingly perfect marriage; and Kitty is too busy with her own secrets to be there for the others. But when hunky Will Harding moves into the neighborhood’s most legendary home belonging to an old widower, the young bachelor ignites desire among the three soon-to-be forty-year-old wives and mothers.

But while each of the women would no doubt toast one another for a midlife crisis affair, when all three want the same man it’s more a cause for manipulation than celebration, as plenty of secrets start to find their way to the service.

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Medium | May 9, 2022

40 new novels for your summer TBR, with new releases from Sloane Crosley, Candice Carty-Williams, Andrew Sean Greer, and more

THE FORCE OF SUCH BEAUTY, Barbara Bourland.
July 19. A former Olympian and high school dropout marries the prince of a small European kingdom, but her new life forces her to reconsider the true value of her body and what it’s capable of. I loved Bourland’s previous art thriller novel, the Edgar Award nominated Fake Like Me, and am utterly thrilled for her strange and wonderful-sounding new book. “An immersive depiction of the glittering surface and rotten core of royal living, painted in sumptuous and chilling detail,” writes Kirkus. Amazon, Bookshop, Libro.fm.

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Library Journal | May 1, 2022

Gorgeously written opening lines belie the calamitous earthquake that they portend in this powerful novel from MacCracken Fellow Momplaisir (My Mother’s House). Power couple Genevieve, a psychiatrist, and Bright, a lawyer, split before their second son is born. They share the fear of all Black parents for their boys’ safety but argue over how to assure it. So, when teenage Miles has his first close call with police, Genevieve determines to get him out of Manhattan, against Bright’s wishes. She believes that a trip to Haiti, her ancestral home, will help Miles understand his privilege and deepen the bond between them. They will stay with Ateya, a cousin who is both grateful for and resentful of the largesse she receives from her relatives in the United States. Ateya visits her frustrations upon her nine-year-old daughter, whom Genevieve dreams of rescuing from the deprivations of Haiti and her mother’s scant affection. Momplaisir’s luminous prose evokes the heat, smells, colors, and sounds of Port au Prince, lulling readers into believing that all will be well. Then the earth convulses.

VERDICT Superlative in her ability to portray the interior lives of mothers and their 24/7 litany of self-recrimination, Momplaisir also tackles themes of racism, immigration, and the lasting effects of colonialism. A notable achievement.

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Amazon | May 1, 2022

My Summer Darlings is an Amazon Best Book of the Month pick in the Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense category.

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Kirkus | April 20, 2022

The life of a princess is even worse than it looks.

“All fairy tales serve the same purpose. One woman’s story, told to warn the others. Here is how I lost my feet; here is how I lost my voice; here is how I lost my children....Fairy tales are not about sparkling shoes or white cats. They are about the ribbons that adorn, then sever, your neck.” After dark, edgy takes on the worlds of fashion and art, Bourland takes on world-class running and royal living. Her heroine, a young South African athlete named Caroline Muller, is the fastest woman in the world, having set a record for the marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Eighteen months later she has a career-ending fall that results in massive anatomical and facial reconstruction. She comes out the other side with ongoing limitations and brutal chronic pain—but on the plus side, her new face is drop-dead gorgeous. While recovering at a fancy American medical facility, she meets Prince Ferdinand II, Finn to his friends, scion of Lucomo, a fictional European principality known for its world-class gambling casino. Caro and Finn cross paths a few more times before their cat-and-mouse game of attraction (“I thought with my skin,” she confesses) leads to Christmas Eve nuptials before an “ocean of strangers.” By then Caroline's undergone a rudely abrupt pelvic exam, dozens of hours of invasive interviews, and a jarring initiation into a life pinned into place by an army of dressers, servants, minders, bodyguards, and paparazzi plus wall-to-wall surveillance technology. As Bourland explains in an afterword, Caroline's nightmarish experiences are inspired by the story of Charlene Wittstock, the current Princess Consort of Monaco, a Zimbabwe-born Olympic swimmer who “allegedly made at least two failed escape attempts before her wedding to Prince Albert” and “spent the lavish ceremony sobbing openly.”

An immersive depiction of the glittering surface and rotten core of royal living, painted in sumptuous and chilling detail.

Publishers Weekly | April 11, 2022

Jen Hansen has many admirable qualities—she’s a devoted mother and dedicated yogi—but astute judge of character doesn’t appear to be among them, as the freshly divorced homemaker discovers, at her peril, in this breezy romantic thriller from Cobb (The Hunting Wives). After an acrimonious split from her philandering husband, the financially strapped 39-year-old and her teenage son relocate from Austin to her East Texas hometown, where she’s gobsmacked to meet a golden-haired Greek god of a man moving into the neighborhood. Not only does this charming if somewhat mysterious newcomer, Will Harding, seem taken with Jen but, as she breathlessly reports to the two childhood BFFs with whom she has reconnected, Kittie Spears and Cynthia Nichols, he’s single.

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